Working within an existing space to accommodate the needs of a busy hospital

Penn Medicine – Medical Intensive Care Unit

Penn Medicine, at the University of Pennsylvania hospital, needed to expand. To accommodate an ever-growing demand, we were tasked with working in the existing space to add an eight-bed Medical Intensive Care unit to the third floor of the hospital.

Our team worked to provide a unit that met the needs of current ICU design, providing a room that considered the clinical space needs and clearances, area for the family, and a full-size bathroom for each patient. Being built into and existing space created a few challenges with limited floor to floor dimensions, and the engineering systems above ceiling required careful coordination with all trades. On the floor, an existing hospital corridor running along one of the exterior walls challenged our ability to provide patient room exterior windows—to answer this, we added a clear story window that would bring natural daylight into those rooms.

Throughout this process, we worked together with hospital staff to find solutions that worked for them, met the needs of patients and allowed the hospital to add a very necessary unit.